GOP candidate for attorney general seeks legal reform

Kelly criticizes

incumbent Hatch

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The job of attorney general is one that requires fair law enforcement and less political grandstanding, said Republican attorney general candidate Tom Kelly in a campaign stop in New Ulm on Wednesday afternoon.

Kelly, a commercial law and banking attorney from the Twin Cities, is making legal reform in Minnesota the bottom line of his candidacy. He said he thinks he can do better than the current attorney general, DFLer Mike Hatch.

Kelly particularly wants to focus on eliminating health care industry regulations and changing the state's legal system to reduce the amount of time court cases take, he said.

Kelly criticized Hatch for doing what he called "political grandstanding" and accused him of putting personal politics and headlines ahead of law enforcement. He said Hatch's investigation of gas prices on Sept. 11 was aimed mainly at polishing Hatch's name. He called it an example of biased law enforcement.

"He launched this multi-month investigation and then he issued a report saying no laws were broken," Kelly said. "I concluded that after 10 minutes."

This year's run marks Kelly's first candidacy for office. He considered running for different offices in the past, but he held off because he didn't think it was the right time. Despite those decisions, Kelly stayed involved with politics as a state Republican Party volunteer activist, a role he's played since he moved to Minnesota from upstate New York in 1987.

Kelly decided to run for attorney general because he wanted a voice in public policy, but he didn't want to turn his back on nearly 17 years of practicing law.

Kelly said he agreed with Hatch's reasons for the Allina lawsuit last year, but said Hatch still focused on grabbing press coverage.

"I think an attorney general should be focused on the issues raised when you find a problem. You should be focused on fixing it, not on milking it for headlines," Kelly said.

One legal issue Kelly raises at length is health care reforms. He said Minnesota needs to eliminate regulation of the health care industry in order to promote innovation, which, he said, will lead to more competition in the field and ultimately lower health care costs.

"We've been pushed into managed care by regulation, but alternate approaches will give people more control," Kelly said. "We ought to open the market to alternatives."

Kelly said the state's current approach, adopted in the 1993 MinnesotaCare legislation, adopted what he called "the HMO approach."

"We're seeing now what some predicted then. The HMO model won't do anything to control costs because it's left everybody with the wrong incentives."

Instead of copayments, Kelly favors medical savings accounts that will allow people to pay for treatments until their insurance plans take over. He said the change would encourage people to shop around for health coverage and reduce insurance paperwork. Kelly said the net costs of health care wouldn't increase under his plan, but the plan will change the way health care dollars are spent.

Overhauling certain parts of the legal system in the form of procedural changes designed to reduce the cost and time of litigation of civil lawsuits is one of Kelly's proposals. He also advocates for time limits on all but the largest court cases and tighter restrictions on what he calls "junk science in the courtroom."

Kelly also wants to change certain procedures at the attorney general's office. He said that if he's elected, he will get a prohibition on contingency-fee lawyers retained without legislative consent and restore a soon-to-expire law requiring any money won by the state in a court trial to go directly back into the state's general fund instead of allowing the attorney general's office to keep it.